Advantage of populous countries in the trends of innovation efficiency

A flurry of studies indicates that population size has a positive effect on innovation,however,cross-country empirical evidence remains sparse.In this paper,we add to the literature by investigating the relationship between population size and innovation efficiency at the country level through constructing three relative indexes based on the datasets of patent applications and Research and Development(R&D)investment.Different from previous studies based on absolute innovation indicators,the relative indexes can reflect the core innovation efficiency of economies by excluding the impact from the difference of economic development level,with a view putting all economies into a comparable standard framework.For all of the three relative indexes,their long-term trends show significant correlations with population size,and the economy with a larger population usually has better and stable performance on the trends of innovation efficiency.In addition,we find that there is a critical population size,over which the economy would be more likely to have a spontaneous improvement on innovation efficiency.This study provides direct evidence in supporting the population size advantage on the trends of innovation efficiency at the economy level and provides new insight to understand the rapid development of innovation in a few populous countries.

Research on Innovation-Driven Expansion of Regional OFDI: New Evidence From a Business Environment Perspective

This paper investigates the impact of provincial innovation-driven efficiency on the expansion of regional Outward Foreign Direct Investment(OFDI)flows within the context of China’s economy during the period 2011 to 2020 by measuring the innovation-driven efficiency and business environment index using the DEA-Malmquist index and the combined CRITIC weighting method from the new perspective of business environment improvement.The findings reveal that:(a)There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between provincial innovation-driven efficiency and regional OFDI flows.This increase in innovation-driven efficiency can promote OFDI expansion of the region by improving its business environment.(b)The improvement of the business environments plays a significant intermediary and synergistic role in OFDI expansion driven by improved innovation efficiency.(c)The study of regional heterogeneity suggests that the central region enjoys the longest window period in terms of innovation-driven OFDI expansion,followed by the eastern region while the western region has the shortest window period.The improvement of the business environment in the western region is more effective in driving regional OFDI expansion.This conclusion remained true after the robustness test.In conclusion,this paper offers a few policy recommendations that can help Chinese capital of various kinds go global more effectively.

Study on the efficiency and regional disparity of green technology innovation in China's industrial companies

This paper first constructed a system to evaluate the innovation efficiency of industrial companies within China's Mainland.Then,a principal component analysis(PCA) was performed to these indicators for dimensionality reduction,so as to figure out the technology innovation efficiency in these two phases,respectively.Finally,the overall efficiency of industrial companies in different regions was estimated and factorized via data envelopment analysis(DEA).The results showed that:(1)the efficiency of green technology innovation of industrial companies in China was relatively low as a whole,which mainly resulted from pure technical efficiency(PTE).Further,this huge gap continues to expand in these regions.And both PTE and scale efficiency(SE) in central and western regions leave much to be expected.(2)In the first phase of green technology development,when environmental factors were concerned,the efficiency was much lower than that without environmental considerations.Besides,the central and western regions were facing increasingly severe environmental problems,and there was a wide disparity in technology development efficiency among eastern,central,and western regions.(3)In the second phase of green technology commercialization,there were still more rooms for improvement in raising the efficiency of green technology innovation,and the efficiency in eastern,central,and western regions was ranked from highest to lowest.(4)Liaoning,Hebei,Heilongjiang,Xinjiang,Shanxi,Inner Mongolia,Yunnan,and Qinghai should focus on improving their technology;Jilin,Jiangxi,Anhui,and Guangxi should make their efforts to reduce resource redundancy;whereas Ningxia and Gansu should try to solve the above two issues.

Impact of scientific and technological innovation policies on innovation efficiency of high-technology industrial parks-A dual analysis with linear regression and QCA

Scientific and technological innovation policies play a critical role in the innovative development of high-technology industrial parks.However,it remains unclear how scientific and technological innovation policies impact the innovation efficiency of hightechnology industrial parks and what the impact pathways are.An in-depth investigation of this topic can give an insight into the inherent relation between the scientific and technological innovation policies and technological innovation.By conducting a theoretical analysis,this study empirically analyzed the impact of scientific and technological innovation policies on the innovation efficiency of high-technology industrial parks.The main research methods applied in this study were linear regression and qualitative comparative analysis(QCA).The results showed that the policy targets drove innovation efficiency in a relatively minor way.Among all policy tools,the demand-based policy tools had the most significant influence on innovation efficiency.The supply-based and environment-based policy tools had notable positive impacts during the lag periods of policies.The policy mix pathways for scientific and technological innovation policies that impact innovation efficiency come in four forms,namely,the targets-directed,demand-driven,supplydominated environment optimization,and environment-dominated comprehensive pathways.Therefore,this study put forward proposals on classifying and refining the scientific and technological innovation policies and optimizing the policy mix-driven models.

Evaluation and Influence Factor of Green Efficiency of China’s Agricultural Innovation from the Perspective of Technical Transformation

Agricultural innovation is important for the green transformation of agriculture.Based on the perspective of technology transformation,this paper builds a theoretical analysis framework and evaluation index system for green efficiency of agricultural innovation,and discusses the evolution laws and influencing factors of the green efficiency of China’s agricultural innovation from 2005 to 2017 utilizing the DEA model,Malmquist index,and Tobit regression analysis.The results show that:1)The overall green efficiency of China’s agricultural innovation is not high,the green efficiency of agricultural innovation in eastern China is mainly driven by pure technical efficiency,while that in central and western China is mainly driven by the scale efficiency.The green efficiency of agricultural innovation shows significant spatial differences,and the low efficiency and relatively low-efficiency regions moved to central and southeastern China.2)Technical progress is the main force affecting the change of green total factor productivity of China’s agricultural innovation,seeing a trend of decrease followed by an increase.Pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency exhibit an increasing-decreasing trend,and gradually transform into key factors that restrict the improvement of the green total factor productivity of agricultural innovation.3)Agricultural technologies’diffusion,absorption,and implementation are three influencing factors of the green efficiency of agricultural innovation.The local level of informatization,the number of agricultural technicians in enterprises and institutions,average education level of residents,and the level of agricultural mechanization have positive impacts on the promotion of the green efficiency of agricultural innovation,promoting the diffusion,absorption and implementation of agricultural innovation technology can significantly improve the green efficiency of agricultural innovation.

Investigating the role of emissions trading policy to reduce emissions and improve the efficiency of industrial green innovation

Rapid economic development usually leads to serious environmental pollution problems.In order to solve the problem of pollutant emission in sustainable industrial development,it is urgent to examine the implementation effect of emissions trading policy(ETP)and its impact on green industrial development.This study adopts China's ETP as a case study and selects provincial panel data from 2004 to 2018.We first use a non-radial,non-directed,slack-based measure-directional distance function(SBM-DDF)to measure industrial green innovation efficiency.Then we use a difference in differences(DID)model to empirically test the emissions reduction effect of China's policy and whether it promotes industrial green innovation.Thereafter,results show that:(1)the ETP reduces sulfur dioxide(SO2)emissions indicating the effectiveness of the policy;(2)the policy significantly improves industrial green innovation efficiency,meaning it promotes the sustainable development of the economy;(3)heterogeneity analysis highlights that ETP produces greater benefits for the most polluted regions of China which have more strict environmental regulations.The study examines the effect of emissions trading policy implementation from a new perspective.The study also provides a reference point for China to further refine its policy mechanisms and for other countries to formulate suitable ETP.

The Path and Threshold Effect of Digitalization on the Competitiveness of China's Manufacturing Export

Since its traditional comparative advantages are on the wane,China should use digital economy to enhance its competitiveness of manufacturing export.Based onmicroscopic data of various regions in China from 2013 to 2020,this paper studies the relationship between digital economy and China's competitiveness of manufacturing export,the internal mechanism of their influence,and the boundary conditions for the establishment of the relationship between digital economy and competitiveness of manufacturing export.Our conclusions include that:there is a significant positive spatial correlation between digital economy and export competitiveness;digital economy can not only enhance the export competitiveness of the region,but also have a positive impact on that of adjacent regions;innovation efficiency,the accumulation of human capital and synergistic agglomeration exerts a mediating effect when digital economy impacts China's export competitiveness;and with the share of import trade as the threshold variable,the facilitating effect of digital economy on the export competitiveness of the western region is lower than that ofthe eastern region before the threshold,but significantly higher than that of the eastern,central and northeastern regions as well as the whole country after the threshold.Therefore,China should vigorously promote the construction of new digital infrastructure in the western region,and give full play to the role of new digital infrastructure in promoting trade upgrade.Through the improvement of human capital quality,the centralized development of digital economy and the overall improvement of innovation efficiency,we should gradually improve the international competitiveness of China's export enterprises.